Category: News

On April 26, 2016, at a regular meeting of leaders of the factions represented in the City Hall of the Basque Country (Spain) Gipuskoa Province’s capital city of Donostia (San Sebastian), the following institutional statement was issued, which was later approved by the Mayor on May 5.

Donostia (San Sebastian) City Hall:

1. At this difficult time, conveys its support to Stepanakert, reiterating the right of its citizens to peaceful and normal life.

2. Calls upon all the parties to return to the situation prior to the ceasefire violations and to refrain from hindering the creation of a mechanism, which will allow monitoring the ceasefire maintenance.

3. Calls upon all the parties to settle all the disagreements between them in the frameworks of the Minsk Group, through dialogue and negotiation, always respecting the will of the people.

4. In this regard, requests on Nagorno Karabakh having its own voice at the negotiations conducted by the Minsk Group on Nagorno Karabakh.

In the aftermath of the summit between Armenian and Azerbaijani Presidents Serzh Sargsyan Azeri and Ilham Aliyev in Vienna, ’s Francesca Sabatinelli interviewed Simone Zoppellaro, Armenia Correspondent and Contributor for Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso (Balcan and Caucasus Observatory).

According to him, the meeting of the two Presidents after the April clashes, the worst ceasefire violation since 1994, was an important sign. The Presidents agreed to meet again next month and it is hoped this will lead to a peace agreement.

But what has so far prevented, and what still prevents the peace agreement? Zoppellaro said “Interests of many actors in the field, internal and external respect to this conflict collide. Azerbaijan is a particularly rich state oil and gas country and has one family, that of Aliyev, in power since 1969. The Karabakh conflict is used by this family in power to justify the various limitations of freedom.”

“Then there is Russia which is officially allied with Armenia, but sells weapons to Azerbaijan. So Russia is playing a double game, because it maintains an important presence in the South Caucasus. Europe and America have had, instead, a great indifference to this conflict and have never really tried to fix it. So, unfortunately, this situation has dragged on for a quarter of a century,” the journalist said.

He said that putting an end to this tension, these deaths seems to be on no one’s agenda. “It’s not really on the agenda of anyone! Recall that, among other things, for this conflict we had over 30 thousand deaths, over one million of refugees and displaced persons; the damages that we can imagine for the economy, for freedom, for equality of these two small countries, but they are also part of the Council of Europe, so Europe should also have a much more cooperative attitude, a much larger engagement in the conflict.

“I visited the village of Talish, which has become a ghost town after the April raids; the entire population is displaced; schools destroyed; homes destroyed; many dead, wounded, injured. And then I visited the trenches, which are another scene very impressive, also because it brings us back a hundred years ago, to what happened in Europe during the First World War. We still have today, a hundred years after the First World War, the trenches in which young people, day after day, burn their lives and face death. And all this is a really forgotten war,” Simone Zoppellaro said.

He said the Pope’s expected visit to Armenia is seen as a sign of great hope for this conflict. He believes that religion can also be a positive element for its resolution.

Reporters of “Radiolur” news program of Public Radio of Armenia present a photo report from Mataghis. Unlike , the village of Mataghis is returning to normal life. People are returning to their homes.

Both settlements came under heavy shelling in early April, when Azerbaijan unleashed large-scale military actions against Artsakh.

 

 

 

The reports on the Vienna meeting between the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan are positive, US Ambassador to Armenia Richard Mills told reporters today. According to him, the parties’ commitment to the 1994-1995 ceasefire agreements is the greatest achievement.

“The agreement on the implementation of a mechanism of investigation of ceasefire violations along the line of contact is an expression of goodwill. The agreement to meet for another round of talks in June is also inspiring,” the Ambassador said.

“The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, the government of my country are hopeful that the meeting will produce positive results and will lead to what we all want – comprehensive settlement of the Karabakh issue,” Richard Mills said.

By Marc Woods

Germany is set to vote on branding as genocide the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians by the Turks a century ago.

It’s a diplomatic nightmare for Germany, and for Europe. Turkey has agreed to stop the flow of migrants across the Mediterranean from its territory and take back from Greece any who succeed in crossing. There are questions over whether it will work and whether it’s even legal, but it’s exacted a high price for doing so, including visa-free travel for its citizens. It can do so because it holds all the cards: the migration crisis has shaken Europe to its foundations.

But Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, unpredictable and authoritarian, is quite capable of taking the huff about this. One of his recurring complaints about Europe is that it’s a Christian club, profoundly lukewarm about Turkey’s application to join it. A resolution in Germany pinning guilt for the genocide firmly on Turkey might just be the last straw.

And just to be clear: Turkey did commit genocide.

Article Two of the UN Convention on Genocide of December 1948 describes genocide as carrying out acts intended “to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”.

In 1915-16, hundreds of thousands of Armenians were murdered in their homes or in camps in circumstances of extreme brutality. Women were gang-raped, set on fire and thrown over cliffs. Men had horseshoes nailed to their feet. They were sent on death marches across the desert where they starved or died of thirst or were beaten to death when they fell behind.

Turkey has consistently denied, in the face of all the evidence, that there was a systematic programme of extermination. It has, subtly and not-so subtly, sought to eradicate all traces of the Armenians from the places they once lived.

Questioning the official account of the genocide in Turkey is risky. Turkey’s most internationally famous novelist, Orhan Pamuk, made an off-the-cuff remark to a Swiss interviewer in 2005. Discussing freedom of expression in Turkey, he said that “a million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were killed in this country and I’m the only one who dares to talk about it”. The backlash was instantaneous, even though he didn’t use the banned word ‘genocide’. The press attacked him fiercely, he received death threats and had to go into hiding. Pamuk was threatened with prosecution, though the charges were dropped.

Journalist Hrant Dink, who also wrote about the genocide, was shot dead in January 2007 by teenage ultra-nationalist, Ogun Samast, who was jailed for 23 years in July 2011 for the crime.

Even Pope Francis has to walk on diplomatic eggshells. Last year he referred to the killings as “the first genocide of the 20th century”, resulting in the recall of Turkey’s ambassador to the Vatican, and his visit to Armenia next month will be another flashpoint.

Britain has declined to describe the events as genocide as it regards good relations with Turkey as more important.

But here’s the thing. If Germany had refused to recognise its responsibility for the Holocaust, no government would accept that it had a right to a place at the European table. It would still be an international pariah. In fact, it has unshrinkingly and painfully acknowledged what it did in a way that Turkey never has.

Turkey’s guilt is unquestionable. It owes it to the few survivors still living and to the descendents of those who escaped to acknowledge it. It owes it to history, too; and it owes If it does not, it can never be fully accepted into the community of Europe, whether it joins the EU or not.

In spite of the refugee crisis, in spite of the horrors unfolding on the other side of its border with Syria, in spite of the authoritarian crackdown on dissent and a renewed offensive against Turkish minority – all factors that would lead many diplomats to say that the less this boat is rocked the better – Germany’s parliament is doing a good thing. Whether it will sway Erdogan himself, or Turkish public opinion, is a different question. But the truth must be told.

Newly released emails show that a former Democratic National Committee official and lobbyist for the Turkish government directly contacted two of Hillary Clinton’s top aides to ask for a favor ahead of the then-secretary of state’s March 2009 visit to Turkey, reports.

The correspondence raises numerous questions because the lobbyist, David Mercer, was paid $25,000 a month by the Turkish government to convince lawmakers and government officials to oppose a bill designating the Ottoman Empire’s murder of an estimated 1.5 million Armenian Christians from 1915 to 1917 a genocide.

Clinton once touted her support for the resolution but flip-flopped dramatically after she joined the Obama administration.

According to the source, the messages were sent and received at a crucial inflection point for Clinton on the Armenian genocide issue.

As a New York senator, Clinton supported several resolutions calling for the recognition of the mass murders as genocide. And as a Democratic presidential candidate in 2008 she issued a statement promising to recognize the genocide if elected president. She said then that “alone among the presidential candidates, I have been a long-standing supporter of the Armenian Genocide Resolution.”

The pledge earned Clinton the praise of the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), the largest Armenian political organization in the U.S.

But Clinton completely reversed course on the issue and refused to use the “g-word” to describe the century-old atrocity after she entered the Obama administration.

During a State Department town hall in Jan. 2012 she said that the issue of whether the mass murder was genocide was still up for debate.

“I think it’s fair to say that this has always been viewed, and I think properly so, as a matter of historical debate and conclusions rather than political,” she said at the time.

Clinton was called out for the comments in a House Appropriations Subcommittee hearing the next month by California Rep. Adam Schiff, who is currently a member of the House Select Benghazi Committee and one of Clinton’s most ardent supporters.

“Some actions that were taken by you and the administration with regard to the Armenian genocide are of great concern,” he said during the hearing.

“I can’t begin to express in mere words how much anguish has been caused in the Armenian-American community and among many activists about recent statements at a State Department town hall that you made,” he added.

Clinton flailed as she attempted to defend downplaying her statement that the Armenian genocide was still up for debate.

Aram Suren Hamparian, who once praised Clinton as ANCA’s executive director, had harsh words for both Mercer and Clinton.

“Mr. Mercer profited personally by aiding and abetting Turkey’s shameful cover up of its genocide of millions of Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians and other Christians. Mr. Mercer’s complicity in Ankara’s genocide denial represents an unconscionable corruption of U.S. democracy by high-priced lobbyists, a morally unacceptable compromise of American values by a foreign power,” Hamparian told The Daily Caller.

It is likely that Clinton and company were aware of Mercer’s role as an opponent of the Armenian resolution. Records show that he sent letters to Lee Feinstein, the national security director of Clinton’s campaign, at around the time she publicly supported the genocide resolution.

“Hillary Clinton needs to answer for her morally indefensible actions as Secretary of State enforcing Turkey’s gag-rule against American condemnation and commemoration of the Armenian Genocide,” Hamparian told TheDC.

Clinton has not weighed in on the genocide issue during the 2016 cycle. Her campaign did not respond to TheDC’s request for comment.

Photo:  Mikhail Pochuev/TASS

Agreements reached by the Armenian and Azerbaijani Presidents at their Monday’s meeting in Vienna are to put an end to the escalation in the zone of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, a Russian lawmaker said on Tuesday, TASS reports.

“Agreements reached by the Armenian and Azerbaijani Presidents yesterday in Vienna are to put an end to the so-called April crisis and the aggravation of the situation at the border. It is vitally important bearing in mind that the conflict [in Nagorno-Karabakh] is still simmering and is still claiming human lives,” Leonid Slutsky, the chairman of the committee for the affairs of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Eurasian integration and relations with compatriots of the Russian State Duma lower parliament house, told journalists.

From this point of view, “the Vienna agreements are to be a model of a global solution on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement,” he said. “I hope it will be found in a foreseeable future. This is the problem we have no right to leave to the next generation.”

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic issued the following statement today:

We commend the meeting of Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan held on May 16 in Vienna with participation of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Secretary of State of the United States and the Minister of State for European Affairs of France, and support the agreement reached at the meeting to finalize the OSCE investigative mechanism, to expand the existing Office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson in Office, as well as to continue the exchange of data on missing persons under the auspices of the ICRC.

We also share the position of co-chair countries of the OSCE Minsk Group, excluding any possibility of a military solution to the conflict and insisting on the importance of respecting the ceasefire agreements of 1994 and 1995.

These agreements that put an end to large-scale hostilities and thus created the opportunity for finding a peaceful settlement to the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict, have been achieved thanks to full participation of all three parties – Azerbaijan, the Nagorno Karabakh Republic and Armenia, in the negotiations. The logic of the settlement process requires the restoration of negotiations on finding a final solution to the conflict in that very trilateral format.

Photo: Reuters

 

Three bomb blasts in Baghdad have killed at least 53 people, medics say, the latest in a series of attacks in the Iraqi capital in the past week, the BBC reports.

A female suicide bomber is believed to have targeted a market in the northern, mainly Shia Muslim area of Shaab.

The other bombs went off at a market in the neighbouring predominantly Shia district of Sadr City and among shoppers in Rashid, to the south.

The jihadist group Islamic State (IS) said it carried out the Shaab attack.

OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier today issued the following statement on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict:

“The situation along the line of contact continues to be tense. I deeply regret the reported recent loss of life, and I urge the sides to respect the ceasefire in full.

In this context, I welcome the initiative by my colleagues from the Russian Federation, the United States of America, and France, the co-chairing countries of the OSCE Minsk Group, who held a meeting with the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan on 16 May. I am encouraged by the renewed commitment that both Presidents have expressed to the ceasefire and to the peaceful settlement of the conflict, as well as their readiness to have a new round of talks in June.

Germany’s 2016 OSCE Chairmanship remains fully committed to supporting the work of the Co-Chairs. We will actively support efforts to establish an investigative mechanism. We will also work on expanding the team of my Personal Representative, Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk.

The escalation of hostilities in April was a reminder to us all that re-doubled, sustained efforts are now needed to break the deadlock. The consolidation of the ceasefire is a matter of high priority, not least with a view to creating favourable conditions for resuming negotiations on a comprehensive settlement.”